Moral Suasion My Arse--It's Governance by Deception

ANGELO REYES is a really terrible liar, though that's nothing compared to his sheer incompetence made even worse by a terminal case of arrogant conceit based entirely on the fact that it was his mutinous coup d'etat that put the most unpopular President in power in 2001 at Edsa Dos. Five cabinet positions later, we are saddled with his risibly ineffectual handling of of the now all important Energy Department. Someday, he must be brought to Justice (preferrably of the poetic kind) along with Hilario Davide, Mike Arroyo and the overstaying Moral Dwarf in Malacanang Palace.

Tonight he was really pulling the leg of Tina Monson Palma with the claim that it was his patroness' powers of moral suasion that got Petron, over which the government happens to have far more than moral control, and one of the Big Three in the country to roll back its diesel pump prices by P1.50. This after it had just raised the price by P3 last week.

SONA MORO-MORO With the Petite One's State of the Nation Address scheduled for next week, it's more likely a case of immoral coercion, or should I say, a moro-moro deception which no one is buying because word is already out that the buck and half given away will be taken back this coming weekend. Like all that talk of a no-ransom policy for kidnappers which has been exposed as a brazen lie by three successive kidnappings in as many weeks since the Abu Sayyaf terrorists got 20 million for Ces Drilon and her two cameramen and that mysterious peace advocate Prof. Dinampo, even that business of a Moro homeland and "peace talks" with the MILF, is tainted with a suspicious dhimmitude that is all about setting the stage for the President's big speech next week.

It certainly does little for the credibility of the oil company's pricing behavior for the public to wonder whether the original P3 increase last week was justified at all given that oil prices on the global market have dropped almost 15 dollars per barrel in the last two weeks. How stupid or obsequious can they afford to be? By acceding to the President's "moral suasion" the oil companies have made their price increases look capricious and arbitrary and not based on global market conditions as they have claimed. More likely, they are factoring in the recent drop in global oil prices anyway, and have probably gotten a promise of no more "moral suasion" sessions with the president in the upcoming price increases. If they aren't careful this could persuade many sectors and lawmakers to re-establish oil price regulation!

BEWARE OF MERCURY IN CFLS Talkback with Tina Palma also tackled the energy department's "Switch" program which aims to get so-called lifeline electricty users (those who use 100 kilowatt hours or less per month) to switch from standard incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescent lamps.

It's really too bad that Tina Palma didn't make the ADB representative that Angie Reyes brought along to explain the full implications of the little-discussed but significant drawback involved with CFL lighting: the presence of enough neuro-toxic mercury in even a single compact fluorescent light bulb to exceed the US Environmental Protection Agency's limit for exposure to mercury! I'm all for making this switch, but people should have been made aware by Sec. Reyes of the care that must be taken should a CFL be damaged in a residential environment and expose human beings to the mercury in it. Indeed, unless there are effective waste and disposal handling measures adopted and enforced nationwide for CFL's we could be facing major mercury pollution problem in a few years as millions of CFLs reach the end of their lifetimes, or are accidently damaged in use. By the way, the Wikipedia article linked to above suggests that new technology being developed by General Electric could soon produce incandescents that are at least as energy efficient as CFLs. In his desire to make himself and PGMA look good, Angie Reyes is being disingenuous about lots and lots of things.

DIM BULBS President Arroyo and her administration are now dealing from the bottom of the deck and running the country by deception and dissimulation because they are out of political capital with the people and are hanging onto to power by the skin of their teeth. They are lucky to have survived this long, thanks of course to a pusillanimous and equally unprincipled Opposition with even less moral leadership than them.

The country is being led into a valley of darkness by dim bulbs like Angie Reyes who should have been retired from government service years ago for being the incompetent bootlicker that he truly is.